Hokkaido Tourism

This is a project that I started with Rick Siddle in 2010 (then at Sheffield University, now a colleague here at Hokkaido University). We wanted to collaborate on something related to Hokkaido. Tourism was a common theme that allowed our respective interests to merge. Since 2004 I have spent many days enjoying being a “tourist” in Hokkaido; I have worked for 4 years as an examiner for the Hokkaido Government’s English-language tour guide qualification; and my work on the financial collapse of Yubari (for the Shrinking Regions project, see the publications list) introduced me to the potentially negative impacts of tourism in a region of Japan that is famous as a tourist destination. Rick has had a long association with tourism through his studies of the Ainu people, in particular how tourism has impacted on their economic status and cultural identities. The project also includes a number of other researchers from the Center for Advanced Tourism Studies at Hokkaido University, most notably Yamamura Takayoshi, and at other universities (Andy Staples at Doshisha University and Tom Jones at Meiji University).

For a much more detailed overview of the project, please see our project website, hokkaidotourism.net, although the site is still at a very early stage of development.

My particular area of research for the project is about historical or heritage tourism, and how the history of Hokkaido is represented in popular tourist sites. I have focused thus far on tourist sites in Hakodate relating to the Boshin War of 1868-9. I am also interested in aspects of film-induced tourism, particularly related to NHK Taiga Dramas about the bakumatsu (1853-68) period. My first research results were presented at the European Association of Japanese Studies Conference in Tallinn in August 2011. More to come!